Things are looking up again for former air stewardess with multiple sclerosis.
I RECENTLY bumped into an interesting and inspiring person in a local shopping mall near my home in Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
Her name is Keshvinder Kaur. She had been an able-bodied person all her life and was working as an air stewardess for a well-known airline company until a health condition put her permanently in a wheelchair more than two years ago.
“When that happened, I suddenly felt my whole world come crashing down,” said Keshvinder, over a cuppa in the mall.
Our wheelchairs were parked next to each other in the small cafe.
“As a walking person before, I initially felt extremely bound in my physical movements when I had to adjust to using a wheelchair in 2011,” said Keshvinder, 36, who is now paralysed from her chest down.
“My stomach to my legs lost their sensory abilities completely. I couldn’t feel a thing on my body, nor my bladder or bowel movements.
“I had difficulty in wearing my clothes and sitting up. I couldn’t sit straight without support. My balance whilst sitting was extremely bad and I couldn’t pick up anything from the floor for fear of falling off my wheelchair.”
This was how it was – and to a certain point, still is – for Keshvinder after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in late 2004.
Keshvinder had to use walking aids for mobility until she was forced to switch to a wheelchair. (MS is a disease where the covering of the nerves gradually becomes destroyed, damaging a person’s speech, sight and ability to move.)
The events leading up to Keshvinder finally discovering that she had MS were a nightmare. A few weeks before her wedding in June 2003, she could sense something was terribly wrong with her body, especially her legs, but couldn’t pinpoint the problem. Her legs became so weak that she even fell down while trying on her wedding dress in the boutique. A doctor she consulted brushed it off as “pre-wedding stress”.
However, the typical symptoms of MS persisted. A week after her wedding, Keshvinder rushed to a hospital because of excruciating pain along her spine and had a shot of morphine to ease the pain. Then other signs appeared – tingling on both arms and legs, trembling in the hands, numbness and the inability to walk up the stairs or in a straight line.
It took two trips to a neurologist in a private hospital, more medication and the use of a walking stick for almost a year before Keshvinder was diagnosed with MS at the age of 27.
“Initially, I had no clue as to what MS was and how it was going to affect me over the years,” explained Keshvinder. “The information I looked up on the Internet – about its effects on sufferers – frightened me instead of calming my frazzled nerves. So, I stopped reading about MS at once. That was probably my biggest mistake because I went into denial about my condition instead of learning all I could about the disease and finding ways to tackle it effectively.”
Keshvinder recalled it wasn’t difficult to pretend that everything would be OK then because she was still able to walk using her mobility aid and her body wasn’t all that weak.
“The prospect of ending up in a wheelchair never ever occurred to me,” said Keshvinder.
The former flight attendant who now uses a wheelchair to move around and is a mother of a six-year-old boy has a much more positive outlook in life and about the challenges before her. “I am able to see a whole new world in a different perspective, that is, a disability perspective. I was actually ‘a handicapped’ person when I was walking. I have closed my old book and opened a new chapter in my life. A comma was put into my life, not a full-stop.”
Keshvinder now tries to do all the normal chores with her disability, including going shopping and to public events. Her handicap is no longer the problem; she says people’s negative perceptions are.
She has been offered a job at an English language centre near her home. It’s an ideal job for her as she can help, not only the able-bodied to enrich their interpersonal skills, but also disabled persons, too.
However, the problem is that the centre is currently located on the first floor of a building. To reach the centre, Keshvinder has to go up 30 steps! She hopes that some kind souls will chip in for a wheelchair lift so that she can start work.
If you wish to help, contact our columnist at 012-220 3146/e-mail athanasayan@yahoo.com.